Indigenous artists celebrate culture, relearn traditions through art in Waterloo region
3 artists using 3 different mediums to build a stronger connection with their Indigenous roots
Art is helping keep Indigenous traditions alive in Waterloo region.
Local artists are picking up a musical instrument, a paintbrush or a sewing needle to tell their stories and help build a stronger community around them.
In the lead-up to National Indigenous Peoples Day on Saturday, CBC K-W's Aastha Shetty spoke to three artists from across Waterloo region about their craft, and how it's put them on the path to healing.
William Koperqualuk's fiddle tunes
William Koperqualuk has been playing music ever since he moved to New Hamburg to live with his adoptive parents at the age of five.
The 15-year-old has roots in Salluit, an Inuit community at the northern tip of Quebec. He said his love for music has helped give him a voice. It's helped him connect with other Indigenous people who are living in Waterloo region.
"I like to play it for people and then I'd like to talk to people afterwards and I can really connect with them after the show and tell them how it felt," he said.
Music gives the soft-spoken teen a voice within the local Indigenous community. So far, he's performed at several different events with his parents, Alan Dicknoether and Barbara Grant.
"William is a person who is straddling two cultures," Grant said. "Music is a way to find balance and connection, and I think connection is the key to wellbeing."
She says he first started playing music when he was just five.
"Music is such a good therapy. It's so good for our souls," Grant said.
"I think he just feels a little bit of pride in that he's giving something to his community members."
Judy Ross-Mack's acrylic paintings
For Judy Ross-Mack, creating and sharing art is everything.
The Weenusk First Nations artist is based in Kitchener. She's best known for her acrylic paintings, inspired by the style of the Indigenous Group of Seven.
But there's so much more to Ross-Mack's love affair with traditional art. She also sews Indigenous regalia, she's experienced with beadwork and leather work, and she's also a traditional dancer.
She said her art brings her closer to rediscovering her Cree heritage, which was taken from her during the Sixties Scoop.
"I had a really kind of a loss of traditional and culture growing up," Ross-Mack said, remembering how dramatically her life changed when she was taken around the age of two and adopted a couple of years later, in 1980.
"The reason why I started to do a lot of art was because that was the only way that I could express myself. I didn't know how else to kind of talk about the issues I was going through when I was young."
Ross-Mack says the last time she had seen her mother was when she was a baby in 1978. Then 46 years later, in 2024, she was able to track her mother down and see her again for the first time as an adult.
Painting helps Ross-Mack feel more connected to her Cree roots. Today, it's important for her to paint while surrounded by nature.
"I feel so connected just being on mother Earth and there's just something about the energies ... just having that peacefulness ... listening to the birds and the wind ... helps to inspire me to draw."
Amber Sandy's Birchkin bags
Most of us have heard of the Hermes Birkin bag — it's handcrafted with leather and very expensive.
Over the years, the Birkin bag has become an internationally coveted status symbol and is usually seen in the hands of the rich and famous.
Anishinaabe artist Amber Sandy wanted to challenge that notion of material wealth by literally bringing it back down to Earth. She's created her own version made of traditional Anishinaabe materials like birch, moose hide and porcupine quills. With those materials she created the Birchkin.
Sandy took the time to carefully learn the traditional Anishinaabe techniques behind harvesting the materials needed to create a Birchkin. It took her on a journey of cultural rediscovery that she's hoping to pass on to the next generation.
"As a young Indigenous person I really struggled a lot, especially learning about colonialism and the impacts that it's had on my family," she said.
"[Traditional techniques] are things that members of my family haven't been able to do for generations because of residential schools and day schools and all of the impacts of colonialism."
Sandy is now teaching her niece, Rylee, everything she's learned.
"I harvested a porcupine with my little niece a couple months ago and just teaching her those things and knowing that she gets to witness those things and [also] sharing this stuff with my cousins and my aunties and my family. It's just really important to me."
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